— Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander fired his agent this week, will now represent himself.
Next season, Gilgeous-Alexander is expected to make $38,333,050. Friend of mine told me an agent makes 5%, so that means by firing his agent, Gilgeous-Alexander will save himself an impressive $1,916,652.50, just for one season.
— There is an actual baseball game on TV Thursday; Cubs-Dodgers at 3:00, as Cactus League play begins. Temperatures here in beautiful upstate New York will actually get over freezing this weekend. Spring isn’t far away!!!
Spring training games have an extra twist this year, over 60% of spring training games will have an automated ball-strike (ABS) challenge system as MLB continues to move closer to using it during the regular season, which won’t happen this season, if ever.
Each team will be given two challenges per game and will retain successful challenges.
AAA minor league baseball will use the challenge system during the 2025 regular season, giving MLB as much information as possible before a decision is made on 2026.
— ESPN will have the Milwaukee-Bronx game on TV Opening Day; Joe Buck will do play/play, with Joe Girardi, Bill Schroeder doing analysis. Have always thought that Joe Buck is better on baseball than football (he is good at both), but ESPN says this is just a one-time deal.
— Sacramento/Las Vegas A’s gave manager Mark Kotsay a contract extension thru 2028, which is when the A’s are supposed to re-locate to Las Vegas.
Kotsay is a good manager; the A’s played .500 ball after the All-Star break last year.
— Random trivia: When Magic Johnson was the first pick of the 1979 NBA Draft, Larry Bird wasn’t in that draft- the NBA had different rules back then.
2nd pick in the 1979 draft was David Greenwood, a forward from UCLA who played 12 years in the NBA, mostly for the Bulls. He scored 10.2 ppg in his career.
Larry Bird was the 6th player taken in the 1978 draft; somehow he was eligible to be drafted in 1978, but if the Celtics hadn’t signed him before the ’79 draft, he would’ve gone back in the ’79 player pool. Bird had a great season, and the Celtics signed him.
Here are the five players drafted ahead of Bird in 1978:
1- Mychal Thompson, Portland (Klay Thompson’s father)
2- Phil Ford, Kansas City Kings
3- Rick Robey, Indiana
4- Michael Ray Richardson, NYK
5- Purvis Short, Golden State
— NFL salary cap is going to jump between $22-26M for 2025, meaning the league’s salary cap will have jumped roughly $55M over the last two years.
— Philadelphia Eagles started this past NFL season in Brazil, then won the Super Bowl; LA Chargers are going to open next season in San Paolo, on Friday night in Week 1.
— Famous birthdays, February 20th:
Clyde Wright, 84
Charles Barkley, 62
Liván Hernández, 50
Stephon Marbury, 48
Jay Hernandez, 47
Justin Verlander, 42
Brian McCann, 41
Rihanna Fenty, 37
Jurickson Profar, 32
Luis Severino, 31
— Missouri 110, Alabama 98
Mizzou led 59-46 at halftime.
Mizzou was 31-47 on foul line, Alabama 15-21.
Tigers scored 1.39 points/possession.
— Oregon 80, Iowa 78
Iowa lost eight of its last ten games.
Ducks out-rebounded Iowa 36-27
Oregon won its last three games, scoring 78.7 ppg.
— Furman 80, Samford 72
Paladins were 23-27 on foul line, Samford 9-11. At Samford.
Samford has lost three of its last four games.
Furman swept Samford this year, by 2-8 points.
— Boise State 86, New Mexico 78
Boise was 26-32 on foul line, Lobos were 13-17
Loss snaps New Mexico’s 8-game winning streak.
Broncos have won five of their last six games.
— South Florida 78, Tex-San Antonio 73
UTSA led by 20 with 9:04 left in the game.
USF was 20-30 on foul line, Roadrunners 14-16.
UTSA shot 7-27 inside the arc (25.9%)
— Northern Iowa 82, Belmont 79
Northern Iowa has won six games in a row.
Belmont led 29-10 early on.
UNI was 10-22 on foul line, Belmont 7-16. Not good.
Panthers out-rebounded Belmont, 47-28.
— Rutgers 89, Washington 85 OT
Dylan Harper scored 34 points for the Scarlet Knights.
Rutgers was 26-37 on foul line, Huskies were 9-15
These schools are 2,854 miles apart; WHY THE BLEEP are they in the same league???
